Work Text:
The boy is terrified. He stutters and stumbles through his explanations. With all the bravado of his profession stripped away his youth is apparent in every craven glance and under other circumstances I might pity him, but not now.
“You stole this money from Mr Holmes.” Three gold sovereigns lie on the table between us and Holmes lies in his bed, pallid and unmoving.
He shakes his bowed head and grips the chair arms with tense fingers. Absurdly I notice that his hands are very clean, lily white, like a girl’s in a soap advertisement. “He give it me.”
“Did he now?” It seems an unlikely tale.
“I never hurt him,” the boy, Frederick, insists. “He give me the money, doctor, honest he did.”
The question sours in my throat and my pulse beats fast and anxious. “As payment for services rendered?”
Fred blinks in the lamplight, grappling with the question, and then he grasps it from the context. “Yeah, he give it me for what I done for ‘im.”
My mind boggles and rebels. I have never purchased such services from a young man, but common sense and professional experience tell me that three sovereigns is far above his normal fee. What is God’s name did Holmes ask of him that warranted such generosity? That is none of my concern. Holmes is alive, unconscious and weak from blood loss, but all that matters is that the wound was not fatal. Anything else is of no consequence, but I cannot keep a still tongue in my head. “You must have done a great deal to earn three sovereigns.”
He shrugs, fingers picking anxiously at the chair cover. “Just wot I always do.”
Always? Great heavens, how many more shocks can I withstand? “Which is what precisely?” That is a question I have no right to ask, but I cannot help myself.
He shrugs again. “Nothing.”
“One is not paid three pounds for nothing,” I say sternly. I am weary of all this shilly-shallying. “You can either tell me or you can tell the police.”
It is a bluff of course, since any police involvement would implicate Holmes, but it has the desired effect. The boy looks even more frightened. He gulps at me like a landed trout before he casts a fearful look at Holmes’ bedroom door. “He wouldn’t want me to tell yer…”
That I don’t doubt, but I am set upon the truth for reasons I don’t wish to contemplate. “This is between us, boy. I will not repeat whatever you tell me to Holmes.” It is not fear of Holmes’ anger but my own shame that will keep me silent.
Frederick’s gaze skits away across the carpet, then his head jerks up and he meets my steely eye for the first time. “Mr ‘olmes gives us a goldie first off, afore he’s even got ‘is prick out. He’s got some fancy word for it, payment up front like. Then I starts playing with ‘im, that’s wot he likes see and I’m good with me ‘ands.”
He would have to be the Kama Sutra and the whore of Babylon rolled into one to merit three pounds for a handjob. “Go on.”
“Most blokes like it quick, he don’t. Mr ‘olmes likes me to take me time, to fiddle about with his prick without making him spend his self.” Fred points at the gold coins. “That’s wot ‘ems for, if I can keep him going for an hour I gets the second one and after two ‘ours…well, me wrist don’t half ache, but it’s worth it, ain’t it?”
I am torn between disbelief and relief; my fear has been of something far darker and more perverse. This seemed merely foolish and rather pointless. When I indulge myself it is always with the intention of reaching ecstasy without undue delay. Yet this is Holmes we are talking about; Holmes of the indomitable will who prides himself on his ability to master his body’s needs. It makes a strange kind of sense. Another forbidden question springs to my lips. “What happens when you can’t keep him going?”
“Always ‘ave, haven’t I?” says Frederick with a glint of professional pride. “Don’t reckon he’d bother with me again if I never.”
I am in murky waters and it is too late to turn back now. “Does he ask you to…bring matters to a conclusion at the end of your session?”
“Nah, not normally, one time he was real bad and going on with his self in some funny foreign lingo and he told me to do it, but usually he just buttons up and goes.” Fred bites his chapped lip. “I don’t know how he stands it, most times his prick looks fit to burst.”
That image sends an unexpected and alarming jolt of fire through me. This time I am the one who has to cast my eyes down briefly. “Tell me again what happened after he left you tonight.”
“I was just tidying up, right flush I was and thinking ‘ow I’d spend me money, then there’s this load ‘o noise down in the alley. So I looks outta the window and there’s Mr ‘olmes fighting with these blokes. He falls down on the cobbles and one of ‘em kicks his head. Then they runs off. I don’t wanna just leave ‘im, it’s don’t seem right, so I gets me nerve up and goes down. He’s out cold, so me and Jake from the brewery we gets Jake’s mate wot’s got a cab and I brings ‘im home.” Frederick looks at me bleakly. “You ain’t gonna get the coppers on me, are yer?”
“No, of course not.” Everything else aside the boy’s story has the ring of truth about it. “Go home and don’t say anything to anyone.”
Frederick jumps to his feet. “Too bleedin’ right I won’t.” Then he pauses and looks back at me from the doorway. “Mr ‘olmes will be all right, won’t he?”
“Yes, he’s been very lucky.” Frederick dashes off into the night and I am left to wonder at the loyalty Holmes has inspired in the young prostitute.
Needless to say that is not all I have to ponder upon. The night’s traumas and revelations have left me confused and anxious. I slump down and an instant later I am up again, pacing around the sitting room Holmes and have shared for so many years. I did not know. I did not imagine. Inevitably my feet carry me to his door. There is a lamp burning within, it casts a yellowish glow by which I may study him. There is a pallor to his skin, but Holmes is sleeping naturally now and his breathing is steady. When I lift his hand to take his pulse that too is even and regular, I wish I could say the same for my own.
It is the kind of apprehension one feels before a university examination or a marriage, as if something momentous and life-changing is about to happen. That is a ridiculous notion. I have given the boy my word that I will not speak of our conversation, but I will not have to. When Holmes regains his senses he will take one look at me and perceive instantly that I know his secret. I am almost glad of that, for I do not wish to deceive him and yet I dread our forthcoming confrontation.
*
If I hoped that decency or embarrassment would keep Holmes silent I was to be sadly disappointed.
“Say your piece, Watson,” he declares one evening when we are seated by our hearth.
To say that I am nonplussed by his sudden announcement in an understatement, I lower my newspaper and blink at him blankly for a moment. “You could go to prison,” I say like a fool.
Holmes snorts derisively. “That is most unlikely, unless of course you intend to go to the authorities?”
“Don’t be stupid, Holmes.” I am hurt that he would suggest it even in jest. “You know that I would never betray you.”
He regards me for a long moment. “Indeed I do,” he concedes softly. “Although I admit to a certain…uncertainty with regard to your reaction to my proclivities.”
This is the point at which I ought, as a physician, to lecture him most severely about the dangers of his actions, but the words strangle unspoken. First, foremost and forever I am his friend. “Well, I don’t entirely understand why you would torment yourself like that.” The boy’s words have burnt themselves into my brain, his prick looks fit to burst, and colour infuses my face.
Holmes chuckles. “I am embarrassing you, old friend, and you a medical man.”
Medical or not I could not be further out of my depth and I am ashamed of my gauche blushes. “We barely touched upon such matters during my training, but such unnatural restrain cannot be good for you.”
He laughs. “Doesn’t your profession preach the virtues of self-restrain and of the conservation of ones semen? You really cannot have it both ways, Watson.”
“You take things to extremes,” I retort sharply. “Going to that boy every…” I have no idea how often he calls upon Frederick since I did not think to ask a week ago. “And yet not allowing yourself to do as nature intended.”
His smile vanishes. “Your profession also insists that I am the very opposite of nature’s intention, that I am inverted and perverted, so why should I give a fig for nature?”
I have no answer to that, no defence against such a true accusation, but his pain touches me. “It’s…I don’t think that it is so terrible a thing, not compared to some of the things that you and I have encountered in pursuit of your cases. There is no harm in what men choose do together behind closed doors, but this I don’t understand.”
Holmes rests his head on the sofa back and watches me through silted eyes. “Sift the facts and draw the obvious conclusion, I do it because I enjoy it.”
“How can you? It must be torture.”
“It is a sweet and bitter torture. Have you never desired a woman and not been able to have her? Think how you felt at that moment.”
“Frustrated,” I say with a grimace.
He leans forward. “But were you not alive to everything? To the scent of her hair and the curve of her gown over her bosom? To the urgent press of your phallus against your undergarments?”
“Holmes!”
Holmes is amused by my prudish outrage. “I would have thought that bawdry talk was common in the barracks.”
“I not used to hearing it from you.” It is not the words, it is their implications and the feelings they engender in me. There is a greed in me, a craving to have laid before me all the most intimate details of his sexual practices. I cannot even deceive myself into believing that it is professional curiosity and Holmes will certainty not be fooled for a moment. “It’s odd and yet…fascinating to hear you…” I clear my throat. “Why do you pay that boy so much? It is more than a clerk earns in a week, more than I charge for a consultation.”
“Frederick? Oh, I pay him more than a blackmailer would, enough to ensure his co-operation and silence, and I also pay for his skill. The lad is very good at what he does.”
“I see.” Holmes candour and the warmth in his voice have thrown me again. There is a tight twist of emotion in my gut which I refuse to recognise as jealousy. “Do you often avail yourself of his skills?”
It is an insolent question and Holmes’ eyebrows lift towards his hairline. I look down to where his white hand rests on his knee and await my fate. He waits until I lift my head again before he speaks. Holmes regards me with a smile darting around his red lips. He sits up Indian fashion in his armchair and steeples his fingers together. “Not often. Now what is that you really wish to know, my dear Watson?”
I choke back the one word answer ‘everything’ and mumble that it isn’t my concern. Holmes uncurls himself and pours us both a brandy. His fingers touch mine when he hands me the glass and it is unlike any other passing contact. “My God,” I say and gulp the brandy down.
He watches me with solemn affection in his eyes and his hand strays for a moment to my hairline. Then he resumes his seat opposite mine and I hate the distance between us.
“When I was a callow youth I learn two things about myself,” says Holmes quietly. “Firstly that I was an invert, although I did not encounter the word itself until I went to university. Secondly, that I was an oddity even among inverts. I did not want to make the beast with two backs with my fellows. I disliked the confinement, the heaving sweatiness of it all, besides which I am naturally self-centred and selfish. Much of my fascination was with my own pleasure and in the testing of my own limits. It quickly became apparent that a paramour would want things that I did not both within the bedchamber and outside of it. I recall one particular friend who clung to me like a limpet and often caused me to have an emission after he had promised not to do so. He insisted that it was for my own good, but his total disregard for my wishes made the relationship intolerable for me.”
“Perhaps he had a great affection for you, Holmes.” I cannot bring myself to use the word love.
Holmes sighed. “That’s as maybe, but I could not have lived with the poor fellow.”
“You live with me.”
“You are all together more amenable nor do we live together in the same fashion since you are not an invert.”
I wish that I were as sure of that as Holmes is; my desire for his company, his affection and my insatiable curiosity threw the nature of my desires into question. Buffeted by emotions I speak when perhaps I should not. “If I were to tell you that I have a profound fondness for you I hope that you would not take it amiss. Women are delightful creatures, but they are not like us. They don’t understand things as we do and one cannot have a fellowship with a woman in the same way that one can with another chap.”
“Stop waffling, Watson,” he rebukes me gently. Then he stretches out in his armchair. “I believe that we understand one another very well you and I.” He pauses and for the first time I see a shadow of doubt on his handsome face. “Unless I have misjudged my Watson, I would not wish to offend or to damage our long association. If you find me objectionable you must speak out now before any real harm is done.”
I lean forward and place my hand over his. “I have no objections, but I am devilish curious.”
He laughs, a clear relieved sound and interlaces our fingers with a neat turn of his wrist. “You said that I paid Frederick more than you charge for a consultation.” He glances at me shyly. “I would be happy to offer you the same fee for your...medical expertise.”
I am sick with nerves. “That would be most acceptable.” Needless to say I have no intention of taking his money.
Now it is Holmes who looks anxious. “There is a stipulation. Whilst you are examining my private parts I may express an ardent desire to spend myself, but I must have your word that you will ignore any such entreaties.”
It is a question of trust and I must keep faith with him as that fellow at university did not. “Very well, you have my word of honour, but how will I know if you truly wish to experience an emission?”
Holmes smiles. “You will know.”
The curtains are already drawn against the evening chill, but I turn up the lamps and light the candles on the mantelpiece. This will not be hidden in darkness. Holmes watches me approach the sofa, with his gaze locked with mine he reaches down and unfastens his trousers.
I swallow the fear and the lust closing up my throat. “Please take your penis out.”
He smirks. “Yes, doctor.”
I am not surprised to discover that he is half-hard since my own organ is in a similar condition. We smile at one another, companions in a conspiracy. I kneel at his feet, ignoring the painful pop in my knee. His member is a pale curve of flesh nestling in dark hair and I realise that I have no idea what to do with it. Obviously, I have examined men’s genitals many times in my medical career and I know how to bring myself to frantic fulfilment with my hand, but this…
Holmes senses my confusion. “Make fast touches brief, slowly and gently for the rest, and desist the instant I tell you to.” He opens this palm and a gold sovereigns lies there. “Then you shall have this and its companions later.”
I nod, not trusting my voice, and wrap my hand around his prick. It rises immediately, stretching beyond the length of my palm and Holmes’ breathing deepens. “Your penis is very responsive…” I cough. “How long is it since you last had an emission?”
“Nineteen days.”
“And you have visited a male prostitute and masturbated regularly during that time?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good lord…” We both giggle at my floundering. I move my hand. “Does this feel pleasurable?”
Holmes lets out a long breath. “Very much so.”
I repeat the motion several times and then pull hard upon him for a few seconds before I resume the slow stroking. Holmes sighs and arches his hips into my hand, but he is very quiet, watching me through barely open eyes. The feel of his prick becomes familiar and I am so lost in what I’m doing that I jump when he orders me sharply to stop.
I blink at him owlishly and realise that I have no idea how much time as passed. “Holmes, I’m sorry, I -”
“Just a moment’s respite.” He strokes my hair. “It’s more difficult to restrain myself when it’s your hand on my prick.” His long fingers slide across my face. “Continue.”
I make a ring of my thumb and forefinger, and slide it from the root to the tip of his engorged manhood before reversing the motion. Holmes’ eyes close and his head drops back. “Again.”
“As many times as you wish.” That proves to be a rash promise, twice more he tells me to stop, but the pain in my knee is becoming intrusive and my prick is rubbing itself rub on my underclothes. To say nothing of the fact that I am absurdly thirsty. I shift position, trying to ease my discomfort and rub my hand rapidly over the head of his organ. That action cracks his silence into a low moan. “More,” he demands. “Oh...Ah…Stop, stop, stop!”
On this occasion I am glad to obey. “I need a break anyway,” I tell him bluntly. When I stagger to my feet my legs are as cramped as my fingers.
To my surprise Holmes clasps my forearms to steady me. “My poor Watson, I didn’t realise that you were so uncomfortable.”
“It’s nothing,” I say trying to stomp the ache out of my knee. He is in disarray, a fallen angel with tousled black hair and a substantial erection. I want nothing more than to please him, but I do not relish the idea of kneeling on my damned knee again.
“Perhaps we should retire to my room,” Holmes suggests.
I seize upon the idea gratefully and five minutes later there is a soft mattress beneath me as I stretch out next to Holmes. He lies on his back with his prick protruding shamelessly from his open trousers. Holmes snares my fingers when I reach for it. “Not yet, old man. If you…I would like you to kiss me first.”
This is something he has never asked of his prostitutes. “I would be honoured,” I say and I mean it, although my first effort is clumsy. We grow in confidence as our mouths meet again. He tastes faintly of tea and toothpowder and uniquely of Holmes. I would know him blindfold in a hundred years.
He rests his forehead on mine. “Touch me,” he whispers and I set about dragging another moan from him. It rises quickly from his throat this time and I soon have to stop. “Go on,” he groans. “It’s heaven, beautiful…Oh lord, I want to spend myself.”
My hand freezes on him. I remember my vow. “You know that you can’t do that.”
Holmes nods with his eyes squeezed shut. “Just be careful.”
I handle him as delicately as if he were a primed bomb, but his head tosses from side to side on the crumpled pillow. “Oh God, it’s glorious, so good…don’t let me.” He breathes through his open mouth. “So very good, heavenly, so heavenly - Stop!”
The second I release his jerking member Holmes rolls onto his side and lies quite still save for the rapid rise and fall of his chest. I clasp his shoulder. “Are you all right, my dear fellow?”
He nods into the pillow. “I’m so near. I can feel every touch lancing through my belly and down into my thighs. It’s almost happening.”
“Perhaps you should let it,” I suggest. “It can’t be good for you -”
Holmes slams over onto his back and glares up at me. “Et tu Brute?”
“You’re impossible,” I rage. “Why must you fight your body so hard?”
“Because I want to, because I can.” A sorrowing look passes over his face. “I hoped that you understood, but perhaps I am quite beyond the pale.”
Dear God, those cannot be tears in his eyes! Doesn’t he know that I would do anything for him? I lower my head and kiss his precious mouth. “Forgive me, old friend, it is not easy for me to see you in such travail.”
“It is of my own making, Watson, of my own choosing.” Holmes wraps his wiry arms around my neck and pulls me down so that my head lies upon his shoulder. “There is no need for you to fret for me when I am in ecstasy.”
“An agonised ecstasy,” I say sullenly.
“Is there any other kind? All pleasure carries with it the promise of pain.” Holmes props himself up on one elbow. “You look tired, my dear, perhaps we should sleep upon it and continue this tomorrow?”
I gesture at his groin. “You can’t possibly go to sleep like that!”
“I have done so often enough before, but never with you beside me.” Holmes smiles tenderly. “Would you do me the honour of sharing my bed tonight?”
How can I possibly refuse? I drag myself upstairs and pull on my nightshirt. Lacking Holmes’ willpower and stamina I bring myself to a hasty emission before I go back downstairs. He raises an eyebrow as I crawl into bed with him. “You’ve spent yourself,” he says without censure.
I mumble an affirmative and hide my embarrassment in his pillow. He is still semi-hard beneath his nightshirt and I wonder anew how on earth he can contemplate sleep in that condition.
“The battle wearies me,” he says as if he has read my thoughts. “With your warmth and companionship I shall sleep well tonight.”
*
Holmes is a restless sleeper, He turns his way and that, stealing the blankets and muttering to himself. I finally drift off just after the church clock strikes midnight. If I dream of anything or anyone I do not recall it, but my slumber is disturbed in the grey hour just after dawn. Holmes has thrown the bedcovers back and bundled his nightshirt up around his waist. His left leg is drawn up at the knee and he’s playing with his prick.
“What time is it?” I say groggily.
“Ten to five.”
“Oh lord.” I scrub my hands across my face, trying to rub the grit out of my eyes. “Couldn’t that wait until a more civilised hour?”
“Obviously not,” says Holmes with a wry twist to his mouth. His hand moves urgently on his manhood. “Ah, don’t let me, please don’t let me…” He releases himself abruptly. “Ohhh…” Then he gives a breathless little laugh. “Good morning, Watson.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I grumble. Despite the enticement of Holmes and his prick more sleep is a very attractive prospect. “Why don’t you try to go back to sleep?”
He shakes his head. “I woke on the verge of an emission and I won’t risk spending myself whilst I’m asleep.” Holmes taps me smartly on the thigh. “Besides London is an adventure at this hour and my penis needs a diversion. Up you get slugabed, we leave in fifteen minutes.”
*
I nick myself shaving, misplace a glove and am in dire need of a cup of tea, but twenty minutes later Holmes and I are strolling arm-in-arm through the early morning streets. Already people are on their way to their places of employment and carters are making deliveries. There is a sour tang in the air that threatens fog later and the sky is leaden grey.
“Perhaps we might buy some breakfast later,” I suggest.
Holmes squeezes my arm. “I know the very place, but we must walk awhile yet. Don’t look so glum, Watson, it will build your appetite.”
“It needs feeding, not building.”
That draws a chuckle from him. I give him a quick sideways glance. He is dapper and neat, no one would ever imagine how he writhed on his bed sheets just a few minutes ago. There is no outward evidence of his frustrated passions and I wonder how many other times I have walked beside him all innocent and unsuspecting. When I venture to ask him how he fares Holmes tells me that his desire has abated but not dissipated.
He pauses at the end of an unremarkable street. “These walks can become an odyssey of frustration since so many things can cause my prick to rise, from a handsome man to that lamppost down there.”
Utterly nonplussed I stare at the black iron object. It is rather phallic in design, but I would not describe it as simulating. “I don’t see the attraction.”
Holmes smiles at my confusion. “Of course you don’t, but a desperate stallion may attempt to mate with a cow. If I were to straddle it I could squeeze my prick between my stomach and its smooth metal surface, and spend myself thrusting against it.”
“For heaven’s sake, man!”
Holmes laughs. “Oh, I’m not going to do it, but I should certainly like to.” He pulls me into a shadowy doorway and places my hand over his rampant groin. I will confess that I would be equally aroused if I hadn’t taken care of things before we left the house. Even so I cannot resist the urge to kiss him passionately and dangerously. If we are caught like this it will mean a prison sentence. A clatter on the cobbles startles us apart and we quickly slip away.
Our walk is indeed an education for me, and Holmes, who can be the very devil, takes great pleasure in casing covetous glances at every presentable young man who passes us in the street. My growling jealousy is a source of much amusement and when I whisper that I will make him pay when I have his prick in my hand he positively glows with delight.
I finally get my breakfast in a modest establishment in the City of London. It caters mainly for tourists and office clerks, but the food is excellent. Holmes eats next to nothing. He pushes his plate away and lights a cigarette. “The view is most simulating.”
I turn in my seat so that I can see out of the chop house window and find myself confronted by a bronze statue of a Greek warrior, banishing a sword and clothed only in a fig leaf. I don’t know if Holmes is teasing me or whether the statue has excited him. Then I see hand clench into a fist on the table and his eyes close for a second. I brush my fingers over the back of his hand, a casual, seemingly accidental contact. He blinks at me. “I want you to touch me.” We both know that is impossible.
“We should go home,” I say gently.
“Not yet,” says Holmes stubbornly. “Are you finished?”
I’m not, but I leave the rest of my breakfast and follow him out into the overcast morning. The streets are far busier and noisier than they were an hour ago. I am almost deafened by the clang of iron wheels on cobbles when a brewer’s dray passes us. “Where are we going?” I shout at him over the dim.
Holmes does reply, but he suddenly dashes across the road to hail a hansom cab. “The British Museum,” he tells the driver as I clamber in beside him. A moment later I am jerked back in my seat as he pulls inexpertly out from the curb. I am about to complain when Holmes seizes my hand, undercover of the black metal apron that separates passengers from drivers he pushes it down into his groin. His trousers are still fastened but I can feel the bulk under them. “Don’t rub,” he whispers, “just hold me.”
My fingers ache to flex and push, but I force myself to obey his instructions. On that journey I am aware of every bump and rattle, of every tiny twitching movement he makes. Once I try to withdraw my hand, thinking that there is no point to such torment, but he clamps it in place with his own.
When we alight at the museum gates there are two high spots of colour in his cheeks and he keeps his coat wrapped tightly around himself. At my insistence we sit awhile on a bench in the foyer and then go to look at the harmless, beautiful, medieval manuscripts. I snatch a question when the attendant is occupied at the far end of the room. Holmes tells me that his penis has finally relaxed, but then he winces and adds that his testicles ache dreadfully. People sweep into the room before I can reply and we move on. Holmes knows exactly where he is going and I follow reluctantly in his wake.
The marble statues are both Greek and Roman, and many have resisted the defacement of the fig leaf. Holmes’ gaze lingers on their modest stone genitals for longer than it ought to. I take his arm again. “Let’s sit down.”
Perversely he picks a bench opposite the most well-endowed of the marble gods. He regards the statute with rueful exasperation. “I suppose I must be grateful that social convention prevents me undertaking a potentially ruinous course of action.”
Poor Holmes does not sound remotely grateful. I suppress a smile. “Perhaps you will be well advised to avoid such temptations for the rest of the day.”
Holmes agrees and leaves his marble seducer without a backward glance, but he will not return to Baker Street for he insists that the seclusion of our home is the greatest temptation of all. We take luncheon in a public house, attend a tedious afternoon concert. Then we cannot dine like gentlemen because Holmes will not return home to dress for dinner so we go to a music hall which I much appreciate. Only when Baker Street can be avoided no longer do we make tracks for home.
*
Holmes changes into his nightshirt and robe, but he announces that he intends to sit up and smoke his pipe before he retires for the night.
“Am I dismissed then?” I ask bluntly.
“That depends,” Holmes eyes me over the briar curve of his pipe. “Last night you gave me your word, will you promise me now that that no matter what I do or say in extremis you will stop before I spend myself?”
“I promise.”
He nods slowly. Then he closes the distance between us and kisses me on the brow. “Thank you, my dear Watson. I shall place myself entirely in your hands.” We kiss, tender as lovers, and he rests his head on my shoulder. I breathe in the scent of the lime cream on his hair. Holmes presses my palm to the front of his nightshirt and I rub the bunched up cloth back and forth over his erection until he moans.
I take a step back. “Shall we continue this in your bedroom?”
“Yes, I should like that.” He already looks wickedly debauched. There is even a tiny wet circle where his penis juts against the fabric of his nightshirt.
He takes my hand and I lead him to his room where he collapses onto the bed. I shoot the bolts on the door and when I look round he was yanked his nightshirt up around his middle. “Getting impatient, Holmes?”
He gives me a glare that would freeze stone. Then his head rolls on the pillow. “For God’s sake touch me!” His hands are clenched in the sheets.
I crawl into position and he groans with relief when I begin to masturbate him. His eyes close instantly and he breaths through his open mouth. For two or three minutes only his sighs fill the room. “Good, so good,” he whispers lifting his hips a fraction. “It’s wonderful. Oh, no…don’t…Stop.”
I immediately let go of his rigid member. “It’s all right I’ve stopped, just tell me when you’re ready to continue.”
Holmes bites his lip. “In a moment.” He smiles up at me and draws me down into a kiss. “Go on, my dear.”
I do and we repeat the cycle twice more. Holmes is becoming increasingly verbal and frantic. Translucent fluid is seeping from the tip of his prick as if it were shedding sticky tears for its own torment. When I wrap my hand around it for the fourth time he cries out and thrusts violently. “I want to spend – Oh, please don’t let me.”
“Hush, dearest, I won’t.” I reach between his legs and carefully ease his swollen testicles away from his body. They’re heavy and full in my hand, and I seriously doubt that he can last much longer. “Yes,” he murmurs when I roll them in my palm. “My prick, please, my prick…”
So I stoke it again in a slow up and down rhythm that soon has him gasping. Holmes is quite beautiful with his pale skin flushed scarlet across his chest and stomach. When his long eyelashes flicker and his eyes open they are black with arousal. His prick is as the boy described it, fit to burst, hugely swollen with the thick veins standing out all over it and the head darkened to a wicked purple. He is begging to be allowed to spend himself and one way or another this must end soon.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper helplessly. My own prick is ready to erupt inside my trousers and every instinct I have tells me that Holmes needs the release he craves; that he will be glad and grateful. Perhaps, but I have made him a promise and if I break it will he blame me when the spasms of ecstasy are over? Holmes does not trust easily and if I fail him –
“Don’t let me, please, don’t let me!” Holmes claws at my hand. “Oh God, I want to spend myself.” He twists over and buries his face the pillow. “No, I won’t! Nemo liber est qui corpori servit Nemo liber est qui corpori servit.”
It is Latin, the funny foreign lingo the boy spoke of; No one is free who is a slave to his body. I put my hand on his trembling back. “You are free, Holmes, free to do whatever you wish with your body.” I gulp for air and some semblance of normality. “Just rest and the intensity will pass.”
Holmes whimpers and shakes his head.
“Yes, it will.” I stroke his hair to try and soothe him, but my voice is as unsteady as my hand. “Then you can emit at a time of your own choosing.”
“Tomorrow.” Holmes rolls onto his back with his arm thrown across his eyes. “It’ll be three weeks tomorrow since I had an emission.”
*
The fire burns brightly in Holmes’ bedroom grate and the curtains are closed. We are cocooned from the stormy night and safe from prying eyes. I hold my hands out to the flames and they are infused with orange, untrembling and sure. He is my dear, my love, and if the bond between us is of earth as well as air, of flesh as well as of the spirit then so be it.
I turn to him without the slightest pang of conscience or shame. Holmes sits up in his bed with a flock of white pillows behind him. He is naked and I am wearing only my nightshirt. There are two whisky tumblers on the nightstand. We clink our glasses together and toast one another with adoring smiles.
“The path unwinds before us, my friend,” says Holmes and I know that he is nervous.
“We will follow it together,” I promise him. Then I lean in low and claim a malt flavoured kiss from his fine mouth.
“Lie down beside me,” he says.
I place my head upon his pillow. Only our lips touch as we exchange ardent and loving kisses. It is sweetly pleasant and Holmes, whose phallus had risen before I got into bed, seems to be in no hurry to move onto the next course.
A flurry of rain against the glass makes us life our heads. Holmes gives a barely perceptible nod and I close my hand around his prick. His eyes close and his lips part instantly. “Heaven,” he whispers. “Oh, that’s heaven, how can I want this to end?”
“It must,” I reply kindly and bestow a kiss upon his temple.
“Not yet.” He abandons himself to my caresses, sighing and murmuring as I fondle his heavy prick. “So, so good…do it quickly. Yes, yes…stop, stop, stop.” Holmes shakes the sweat out of his eyes. “You’re too good at this, Watson, you’ll never earn your three sovereigns if you don’t take care.”
“Oh, I shall take most excellent care of you.” I steal another kiss before I begin to work his phallus again and I chuckle at his groan of pleasure. Without being bidden I suddenly increased the pace and Holmes shivers in ecstasy, but seconds later he is begging me to stop. I brave one final fast pull that drags a moan from his labouring lungs. He swears, a gutter curse that I’ve never heard him use before. We both giggle breathlessly.
“Slower,” says Holmes and his hips lift in anticipation.
I make a ring of my thumb and finger, one that fits snugly around him and I move it gradually towards the crown of his prick. “Is this slow enough for you, my dear fellow?”
“Go to damnation.” He tries to thrust into my hand, but I move with him so that his efforts are wasted. “Please, Watson…”
It is an almost instinctive obedience and then I check my movements. “I think that slow is best.” Fraction by fraction I lower my grip until my fingers nestle in his pubic hair, then I drag them slowly back up his long length. When I rub the flat of my palm over his leaking prick his pelvis jerks up. “Ah…oh God, that’s wonderful…ohhh…” His head trashes from side to side. “I’m so near.”
My own prick jerks in reaction. I bite the inside of my lip and go on rubbing his prick head. “So near,” Holmes moans again. “I want to spend. Oh God, help me, I’m so near.” I touch the ultra-sensitive spot under the head of his organ and he cries out wordlessly. Without warning or respite I twist my hand around his bulging shaft. “Oh heavens! Oh please…I’m too near. I can’t…I’m too near – Stop! “Holmes sobs. “Please, Watson, please. I want you to stop!”
At that moment I might well have ignored his pleas, but the edge of panic in his voice stays my hand, with the upmost reluctance and many misgivings I let go of his prick. It spasms wildly, seeking the simulation it has abruptly been denied. “Holmes let me -”
“Don’t. Tempt. Me.” He holds himself very still, as if fears to move even a fraction. “Please don’t…”
“You have to -”
“I will,” He breathes out shakily. “I want to, but not quite like that.” He forces his dark blown eyes open. “Just grant me a few minutes respite.”
“All right.” My voice cracks, raw with emotion. I am frustrated and fascinated.
“Thank you.” He brushes the back of his hand across my cheek. “If you hadn’t stopped when you did it would have been too late.”
I press my lips to his palm and his pulse beats wildly under my caressing fingers. His breathing is still shredded with lust. “I’m just amazed that you wanted me to stop when you were only seconds away from emission.”
Holmes smiles tenderly. “Dear, solicitous Watson, whatever should I do without you? “ He tugs on my hand. “Lie down here with me and put your arms around me, dearest.”
It is a command I am only too willing to obey. Holmes nestles into the curve of my neck and shoulder, but he takes great care to keep the lower half of his body angled away from me. I bury my fingers in his dark, tangled hair and massage his scalp. “Are you all right, my darling?”
Holmes doesn’t answer immediately and when he does he sounds almost bashful. “I’m desperate to emit and the urge…dear god…” He moves restlessly. “The urge to take myself in hand or to beg you to do it is almost unbearable. Oh God, I need it so much. Yet the sensations are extraordinary and if I capitulate without even seeing you naked I shall be livid with myself afterwards.”
Now I’m the one who’s bashful. “I’m not much to see,” I mutter. I’m neither slender nor youthful, and I carry the scars of war on my very ordinary body. “Besides you’ve seen me before at the Turkish Baths.”
“That isn’t the same thing.” Holmes trails his fingers over my chest and down over my hip. “I’ve never seen that marvellous specimen of manhood that’s tenting out the front of your nightshirt.”
“It isn’t anything special.” I’m blushing like a virgin schoolboy.
“Perhaps I should be the judge of that.” Holmes raises his head so that our faces are almost touching. “Although I’m afraid that the sight of it will make me spend myself instantly.”
“Don’t be absurd. “ I shall die of embarrassment in a moment. I’m not worthy of such praise and such passion. It humbles me.
“Shall we put it to the test?” Holmes turns himself about so that he is kneeling on the bed. “Kneel up and take your nightshirt off.”
I scramble inelegantly into position. My heart is hammering furiously and our knees bump together. We are so very close and I could die for the light in his eyes. I wonder fleetingly when this happened to me and the whisper in my mind says that it was long ago. Holmes is waiting with his proud prick jutting out between his thighs. I gather crumpled cotton and courage and drag my nightshirt over my head.
His gaze goes down. “Beautiful,” he says with such desire in his voice that my organ jerks in response. Holmes grins. “It seems that I am not the only one in need.”
“God knows why,” I mumble. “I’ve spent myself more times in the past two days than I normally do in a month.”
Holmes tuts. “Self –abuse? And you a physician.” He leans in to kiss me and I am caught between the wet heat of his mouth and the hand that presses into my thigh, rubbing over the thick tawny hair there. I ache for him to touch my member, but he doesn’t. Instead he straddles over my thighs. His weight pushes me down into the mattress and I grasp his narrow hips to steady myself while we kiss.
His head flies back and he gasps. “Oh God, I can’t stand it anymore.”
“You don’t have to, dearest.” I wind my hand around his rigid prick and he thrusts forward instantly.
Holmes groans. “Ah, Watson, I’m so near, so very near. Oh please…” His head falls forward and his teeth graze my shoulder. “God…”
“It’s all right.” I kiss the crown of his head and wrap my free arm firmly around his shaking shoulders. His organ pulses in my hand and I begin to manipulate it lovingly. My hand rises, encircles the swollen, slick crown of his huge erection and falls again. Now that I have my rhythm I keep to it, neither walking nor galloping towards the finish.
Holmes whimpers and his hips thrust desperately. “So good…so near…Ah…yes, just like that.” His moans reverberate against my shoulder. “Oh, Ah, Oh…” I feel his prick spasm violently in my fist. “Oh, John, it’s happening…Oh god…”
I look down just as his tortured penis finally erupts, spraying us both with his long pent-up seed. He convulses in my arms and cries out again. “Oh, God, yes!” It is too much for me and my own unheralded orgasm bursts forth. I call his name and that makes him shake and shudder again.
We cling onto one another, if we did not we would fall in a quivering heap of limbs. I can scarcely draw breath and Holmes is making little whimpering noises. “It’s all right, I’m here,” I say foolishly.
“Thank heavens for that.” He brushes his lips over mine and collapses back onto the bed, pulling me down with him. There is no strength in us, no desire to move or speak. The world has narrowed to this bed and to the feel of his body entwined with mine. I think that I shall remember this forever and then I sleep.
I wake with his gentle eyes upon me and slide across the pillow to claim his lips tenderly. He pillows my head upon his shoulder and traces the outline of my moustache with a fingertip. “What day is it, Watson?”
I think for a moment. “Wednesday.”
Holmes nudges me. “The date, silly.”
“The 23rd, why do you ask?”
He stretches and relaxes. “If it felt like that after three weeks and only two days of your most loving attentions I cannot help but wonder what my emission would be like after a month of such care.”
I raise my head so that I can see his expression. He is deadly serious. “You couldn’t possibly wait a month, you only just lasted for three weeks.”
“It was difficult,” he admits with a smile, “but I did not think that a gambling man such as yourself would be adverse to a little wager.”
“What wager?” I ask automatically and he laughs.
“Oh, dinner at Simpsons in The Strand, if I spend myself either my intention or accident before the 23rd of March then you will dine at my expense, but if I succeed then you will pick up the tab.”
“I suppose the worse that can happen is that I get a free dinner.” I burrow into his side and kiss the soft skin on his shoulder. We both know that the wager isn’t the point. “Will you be content with that arrangement, you will not find it too…confining?”
“I have never felt confined by you, my dear Watson.” He looks at me with an intensity of tenderness in his eyes. “Never, but you have forgotten to claim your fee.” Holmes rolls over and reaches into the drawer beside his bed. “Hold out your hand.”
“I don’t want-”
“Please.”
I extend my hand and Holmes places a newly minted gold sovereign on my palm, then a second equally shiny coin. It is the third, older and in a gold mount, that brings tears to my eyes. “You can’t give me this.” It is the sovereign he always wears on his watch chain. The one that Irene Alder gave to him on her wedding day.
“Whom else should I ever give it to?” Holmes closes my hand over the three gold sovereigns. “The illusion of love, the truth of love, lost and regained.”
My response drowns in my tears and there is a gemstone glitter of emotion of emotion in his eyes. I swallow and blink, and opt for a simple response.
“Thank you,” I say humbly.